Newham STW Upgrade

• Location: Truro, UK
• Client: South West Water (SWW)
• Partners: Balfour Beatty; Royal HaskoningDHV; NMCN
• Year: 2020
• Sector: Water & Utilities |
• Specialisms: Civil Engineering | Digital Engineering & BIM | Process MEICA |

Newham Sewage Treatment Works (STW) is located on the outskirts of Truro, Cornwall. The site treats wastewater from the city and the surrounding areas which are experiencing rapid population growth.

A £6.8M project was sanctioned in May 2018 to provide a new secondary process stream, utilising the novel Nereda™ granular activated sludge technology, to accommodate the growth. A new sludge treatment plant was also installed to double the sludge treatment capacity of the works.

What we did

Pell Frischmann was responsible for Optioneering, Outline Design and Detailed Design, including Construction Support. We also developed and promoted the Business Case on behalf of SWW to secure the sanction of the project funding.

Pell Frischmann collaborated with Royal HaskoningDHV as the specialist process contractor and owner of the Nereda Treatment Intellectual Property. Hence, we worked closely with them to develop the overall design of the treatment plant.

A 3D Revit® model, acting as a central design tool, was adopted to ensure effective collaboration with the numerous suppliers and subcontractors. This enabled all interfaces to be well managed within the constrained footprint.

Pell Frischmann acted as Commissioning Manager, responsible for commissioning of the Nereda™ plant and sludge treatment facility. This role included:

• Overseeing the harvesting of seed biomaterial;
• Managing Quality Assurance through performance and acceptance testing;
• Completing an extensive analytical laboratory programme;
• Training SWW Operations personnel in preparation for hand over to the end user.

Outcomes

This affordable, sustainable scheme was delivered safely and ahead of programme. It provides a robust increase in treatment capacity, improving the reliability and flexibility of the existing works whilst meeting South West Water’s Business Plan Outcome Delivery Incentive (ODI) targets for the reduction of Category 1 and 2 wastewater pollution incidents, 100% Wastewater Treatment Works numeric compliance and asset reliability.

The novel treatment process, provides the following key benefits:

• Operating and maintenance savings resulting in total life cost savings;
• Future proof the site for additional developments due to the small footprint;
• Mitigate the requirement for future use of chemicals;
• The new plant performance could be used to inform future delivery strategies.

We’d love to hear from you!

To find out more about Newham STW, please contact us through our form here.